Posts Tagged ‘paid leave’

Last fall, the labor ministry inspected 5,111 companies they suspected might be burakku kigyo, or “black companies,” meaning enterprises that violate labor standards, usually with regard to working hours. The ministry found that more than 80 percent were, in fact, guilty of some kind of misdemeanor in their treatment of employees, with 44 percent violating overtime rules and 24 percent not paying extra wages for overtime work at all. All the major media reported the investigation but, as is always the case with such revelations, no companies were identified.

Tokyo Shimbun, however, did interpolate the findings in an interesting way by offering a useful tip to young job-seekers: A good criterion for determining whether or not a company treated its employees fairly was the way it handled paid vacations. As it stands, Japan, among all the major industrial economies in the world, has the lowest rate of workers taking paid vacations — on average only 47 percent of full-time regular employees.

In France, Germany and the U.K., almost 100 percent of full-time workers take paid leave, probably because it is legally mandated. In the U.S., where there is no law guaranteeing paid vacations, the rate is between 70 and 80 percent. The usual reason for Japan’s low showing in this regard is the structure of the workplace, where employees are expected to take full responsibility for their positions, meaning that when they take time off they have to ask other employees to cover their tasks, thus giving those employees extra work.

This can cause bad feelings among co-workers, which is why in Japan everybody takes vacations at the same time. In other countries, tasks tend to be shared within departments or sections, so if one person takes off his job can be covered by several people.

Nevertheless, Japan does have rules governing vacation time. After six months on the job, a new employee, whether full-time or part-time, must be allowed 10 days of paid vacation if he or she has worked at least 80 percent of all his employer’s business days during those six months. Then, for every subsequent year the employee remains at the company, he or she gains one extra paid day off. The labor ministry survey found that the average white collar worker takes 8.6 days of paid leave a year. In addition, a survey by Rengo, the Japan Trade Union Federation, found that 23 percent of workers took no vacation at all, while another 24 percent took up to only 2 days.

According to an article published last November by the weekly magazine Shukan Post, with pressure mounting from the government to increase salaries in line with the Liberal Democratic Party’s economic recovery plan, some companies are looking at paid vacations as a means of meeting these goals, by paying employees extra for the time they don’t take off.

At present, this is against the law. In 1955, the practice of “buying” paid vacations was outlawed because, according to a professor interviewed by Post, Japan was just entering its high-growth period and there were labor shortages, so businesses could afford to buy workers’ vacations since consumer demand was so high. The government realized that workers could easily be exploited.

The Post suggests the government legally allow companies to buy vacation time since workers themselves have said they are willing to sell such time if they receive “the proper compensation.” Companies now can legally compensate for unused vacation time when an employee quits or retires, so changing the law wouldn’t be that difficult.

In any event, the magazine reports that many companies already buy vacation time under the table, though they often pay only the equivalent of the minimum wage. The magazine figures that since a 45-year-old university graduate makes on average ¥18,500 a day, he could demand ¥185,000 extra for not taking his mandatory 10-day vacation. That extra money would add about ¥15,000 more to his monthly pay, which by itself isn’t going to boost his pay enough to provide the stimulus the government wants, but it’s something.